Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Where did you get that accent?!


Parsha time
Originally uploaded by momraggedy.
Ann told me today that Noach (Noah) was a good man. But all of the people around Noach were "weaken."

"Weakened?" I asked. "No!"

"Wiccan?" (Maybe, sort of . . .) "No! Weaken!"

"Oh, wicked?" "Yes, weaken."

The irony is not lost on me that we moved to the U.S. from Israel when I was five and I really sound like a native English speaker, but my daughter's preschool teachers are both Israeli, and she's becoming the one with the accent! The paper shoes she made at school for Yom Kippur were pronounced "sleepers," (slippers) and new, funny examples of this phenomenon happen every day.

Considering that RaggedyDad has a Russian/Belgian(Flemmish)/etc. accent and speaks to the kids in Russian, and my own Israeli father still refers to lettuce as "letters," these kids are going to sound very interesting as they grow up. Fortunately, RaggedyMom has degrees both as a teacher of English as a second language and as a reading specialist. We're going to need all the help we can get!

4 comments:

socialworker/frustrated mom said...

That was pretty funny. My daughter said some really cute stuff about Noach and the story.

PsychoToddler said...

Hate to be the one to break it to you, RM, but you DO have an accent.

Don't feel bad. My mom still doesn't own up to having one.

RaggedyMom said...

SWFM - I'm seeing the Parsha through new eyes along with her each week!
PT - I am well aware of my New Yawk accent (although I can usually turn it off if I want to) - but I do consider myself a native English speaker, unlike RaggedyDad. He actually doesn't feel like he's a native speaker of any language at this point, being that, like your mother, he speaks several (6 I think) languages. As for the kids, we'll see how they turn out!

RaggedyMom said...

MM - Don't worry, that's what Krushchev wanted you to think. Being Russian, however, RaggedyDad concurs with you ;)